


the sky don't work, you don't gotta check the blinds

by Julx3tte



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, I DIDNT EVEN KNOW BUT HERE WE ARE, I know they're actually witches and wizards in canon, Mana Transfer, Slow Burn, actually it turns out this fic is a, au - witches, but like /witches/, strangers to SOUL MATES
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-08 09:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14102682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Julx3tte/pseuds/Julx3tte
Summary: it's like canon, except the magic is different?





	1. portals and stuff

**Author's Note:**

> this is... very different. usually I like writing sweet, emotionally realistic pieces. This has mostly none of those, except very imaginative descriptions of magic and a lot of gesticulation.
> 
> will be back to the other series & fluff soon!

Lily wore a cloak, and the night was dark. Though, it was less that she wore the cloak and more that it rested above her shoulders, held there by magic and willpower. It was too cold for anything else, and her informant would be there too soon to change.

She checked the street once more, unflexing her fingers and turning her hands palms up, but the spell revealed nothing. A second later, she felt a crackle behind a tree several paces away, and a man walked out from behind it.

She expected someone else - a woman, one of the few she’d had contact with. But, before her suspicions turned into more than a feeling, a flaming symbol appeared in his hands - a circle, a triangle, and a single line in the middle. He was part of the Order.

The man walked briskly to her, and she realized he only seemed to be a man because she’d felt his energy - because he’d let her feel his energy as he took a portal in. She looked at him without her witch-eyes and saw the blackness of his jacket evaporate into nothing - purely translucent, and his scarf flailing in the wind. If she were just human, he would look like a spectre in the night.

(Though, if he were just human, she would look like walking armor in the night).

“Quickly, to another place,” he said, meeting her pace and waving a hand out in front of him. A portal appeared, this one just a crack in the pavement, and they stepped through.

It was normal for the informat to suggest the first jump, and their handler to suggest the second. So, as soon as they landed, she reached out into the void, grasping a piece of it’s fabric with a first, and pulled it back to her. Lily didn’t like portals - she much prefered direct jumps, and as she leapt through dimensions she took his arm and brought him with.

They came to a cave, damp and filled with crystals. Familiar territory for Lily, but the man looked at the crystals, which reflected what little moonlight came through cracks in the ceiling, and a sense of wonder filled his eyes.

“I haven’t been under moonlight in weeks. I’ve missed it,” he said.

After a beat, Lily replied, “speak.”

The man snapped out of his trance, and with it, his defensive enchantments. He did wear a coat - and a white buttoned shirt under it, still crisp. He looked cleaner than most of Lily’s contacts, like he’d been working in an office more than fighting in a war.

“James Potter. I’m not normally a spy, but my last mission sent me to some muggle towns that Death Eaters were targeting. I laid down enough protective charms for most of the townsfolk that week, meeting them over coffee of all things. But one let it slip that Death Eaters had already made contact. The springs were a decoy, they’re after Lakewood.”

Lily’s mind moved quickly. What could be so important at Lakewood? She spread her fingers in front of her and drew a map, mentally remembering where her contacts were. Nothing was there - curiously enough. Which meant something important was.

“Lily Evans. Something’s in Lakewood, something the Order means to protect. I don’t know how the Death Eaters found out but we move now. Call your familiar and send word for the rest of your circle to join us.”

“Yes ma’am,” he nodded. He made a gun with his right hand, and a white stag shot out of it and disappeared beyond the cave and the moonlight.

“Funny,” Lily said, letting her lips turn upward.

“What is?” James asked.

Lily snapped, and a grey doe pranced from within a crystal before disappearing again.

“Make a portal James,” she said.

Lily didn’t quite like fighting, but sometimes she missed it. There was something in the rawness of witches meeting in battle. The difference between the studied ones, who cast spells so articulately, and the stormsouls, who tore dimensional holes everywhere they could. In the way familiars sometimes sat and watched together.

She was used to keeping information as a handler, and she was careful about it. But they didn’t pull her from the field because she couldn’t fight - they had re-tasked her because she left too many bodies with no information to gleam.

James seemed to sense her itch, because he smiled at her as he opened another portal, this time through in between the drip of water from a stalactite and the crystal that formed from the minerals below.

* * *

 

Lakewood was empty, and that wasn’t good. It was a town of hundreds, but she felt no souls around.

“The stars are wrong,” James said. “This isn’t Lakewood.”

He was right. The portal hadn’t been wrong, but the destination was. As if someone had warped the entire town into another dimension. Or another dimension over the entire town.

“It smells wrong too,” she added. She’d spent too much time with Sirius, maybe. It didn’t smell like the rainy night it should have been. It smelled like old oak and dry leaves - like nutmeg and red berries. Yew.

Her heart skipped a beat and she realized who had cast this spell. “It’s him, James. On your guard.”

James seemed to realize it too, because his presence shifted. His entire form melted away, and his shoulders widened and his legs disappeared, and his coat became empty, pitch black within.

She caught some wind in the air and she knew they had two minutes. To find what they needed to protect, or be found by the Death Eaters, or have reinforcements arrive.

So she breathed into her hands, and smoke came out from between them, cloaking her in white and silver mist. Underneath she began the cast for _istimatrive_ and _impedimenta_ , and they walked forward.

James pointed out spell traces, and they followed, gathering shadows and mist about them as they walked. As they neared a house, James paused. “It’s Peter, he’s come to kill Peter,” he whispered.

Lily knew of Peter - a spy they had captured early and kept for information, but she never knew what had happened to him. One minute.

“He was my friend once,” James whispered again.

“You ran with Sirius. And Remus,” Lily pieced together. Before the war.

James didn’t respond, but he stepped forward a bit braver than before.

They neared a cul-de-sac where reality broke, and saw hooded figures and a corpse. Peter was dead - but in front of them was Voldemort and five Death Eaters. Thirty seconds.

James looked to her to lead, and she counted to twenty-nine. A second after, everything happened.

She let her spells loose and killed two Death Eaters on the spot - one’s body became ash, and the other went rigid and phased out of the dimension. James fired an arrow, bright yellow streaking through the night, and hit a third in the head.

Voldemort turned and James wasn’t quick enough to close his eyes, and his body convulsed and he screamed in a way that witches shouldn’t - like the very magic lining his bones was being ripped from him. Her heart wrenched and she knew he was hurt.

A dozen flashes of light and another half-dozen trees exploded into flame. Reinforcements on both sides.

For the first time in a long time, Lily felt fear. She had never faced Voldemort himself, and though the Order had them out-numbered, they had no equalizer. In the span of two seconds: a fracture bomb burst, cracking the dimensional rift; three white lights became red flames; blackness arced across the sky and into two death eaters.

James was on the other side of a crack, and she couldn’t get to him though she was the closest. She reached out - touching the void-fabric, holding it and letting it pull her around the crack - and towards where James lay.

It was a calculated choice. She could not re-enter the fight for seconds, and by then it would be too late. A green snake appeared in the sky, and what was left of the Order had signaled a retreat. Lakewood would fall today; they would recover bodies later. She grabbed James by the front of his cloak and pulled once more, and brought them back to the cave.


	2. Magic Lines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here: a phoenix, a sundress, and a flying bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will have 5 parts. more romance than magics this time!

“Drink,” she ordered. Lily had been a potioneer long before the war. Had it not come, she would have continued the profession. Now she only brewed healing potions - a draught of warmth taken from coals and sunflowers; sometimes a draught of sleep using moonberries and crystals. She made do with what she could harvest and find.

James woke up and took a drink, though Lily had to force him to stay on his back. He grimaced as he tried to move his arms.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. Some of the Order came, but you were hurt and I chose to get you out.”

James closed his eyes again, just as a phoenix swept into the room, announcing itself with a presence of peace and heat. Lily had met Fawkes before, almost always just before Dumbledore himself came. She still wasn’t sure whether the phoenix was a familiar or not.

A door appeared in the middle of the cave, and from it, a knock. Lily answered promptly with a “come inside, sir,” and the door opened to reveal a massive beard and a sweeping emerald cloak.

Albus Dumbledore only ever brought bad news - else, he would send another handler like Lily to bear it. Lily mentally braced herself for the outcome. Peter dead. At least three order members dead. Hundreds of lives in Lakewood lost.

“I see you have rescued Mr. Potter,” he said. “Tom has left a trace on him; I’ve come to see.”

Dumbledore spoke in the old tongue more than not. English was… fine for casting most spells, but the old tongue infused them with power. To speak in it conversationally put Lily on edge. She looked towards James, who’d opened his eyes to look.

Dumbledore walked to him and adjusted his glasses. A spell came shooting from his eyes, and James’ body expanded. Lily, from behind Dumbledore, could see his bones, magic runes inscribed within them. She saw his veins and the way oxygen followed from his throat, though his lungs, and into his organs. She saw black marks where there ought to be lines of magic, lining his heart.

“You see, Ms. Evans? The lines? James cannot leave until they have disappeared. I will cast a Fidelus upon this cave; do not let him leave.”

In the old tongue, his commands tripled in volume, and Lily drew back before steeling her mind. “What happened to the town,” she asked.

“Lakewood is lost. Peter is dead, as are Marlene, Caradoc, and Dorcas. Tom found what he wanted, I think. It is a time for caution.” Dumbledore turned back, collapsing the spell, and walked towards the door. “More orders will come. Continue to meet with your agents, but do take care of Mr. Potter here. I’m sure he’ll only feel more helpless as he recovers.”

At this, James spoke up - “What do you mean?” He managed to lift a finger before yelling in pain. When he got himself under control, he said “What’s happening to me?”

Before shutting the door, Dumbledore answered, “Tom looked into your soul, James. He’s robbed you, and you’ll have to replace what he took.” And he left, the door blinked out of existence, and once more Lily could see the moonlight gathering on a large, clear crystal.

* * *

In the morning, Lily got back to work. She left James after a sleeping draught and met with her contacts. Perhaps in honor, she made a portal out of the dripping water of the cave, letting it take her out into the fields.

Alice was standing by a palm tree, wearing a sundress; she drew her hand in lazy circles in front of her, where apples and berries levitated. As Lily approached, Alice flicked a finger to send an apple flying to her.

“Alice,” she said curtly, before grinning. This was one of the few Order members she knew before the war. They met rarely, but always in daytime and pleasant places. Alice was certainly a witch, but she was cut from a different cloth than the rest. She rode the clouds and watched the waves more often than she wandered the night.

“Lily. Heard about last night - you okay?”

“Just fine,” Lily replied. “But watching over someone that got hurt.”

“James? I was with Sirius last night, he got wind James got hurt.”

“I’ll let Sirius know he’s okay.”

“Anyways. Frank and I have something for you.” Alice’s eyes narrowed, and she pulled Lily in closer. Then, she drew her arms out to her sides, and they were above the clouds, just where the sun kissed the tops of the earth. Lily could see, far below, oceans and mountains.

Alice continued, “He’s after something. You know who. He’s looking for it, and he’s raiding every Order safehouse he can until he finds it. We haven’t figured out what, but it seems related. Two other sites got hit last night. An alarm went off in one and everyone got out; the other’s lost in trans-dimensional space for another few months until the spell wears off.”

“I’ll pass it up. Anything else?”

“That James is cute, isn’t he? Fought with him a month ago. Vicious in combat, nice hands.”

Lily only replied with an eye roll and a hmph, and Alice set them back down. “See ya next time Lily,” she waved. She walked towards a tree, and kicked it, and disappeared. Lily took another portal back to the cave.

* * *

When she got back, James was well enough to sit up. Still without magic, but he had eaten the food she’d left out for him.

“I let Sirius know you’re okay,” she said.

“I’m not sure how I feel right now,” he admitted. “On one hand I feel helpless and my friends could be dying, but on the other hand, I feel like I did when I was a kid and burned out my magic lines trying to fly.”

Lily sat next to him and patted his thigh. “When I was a kid, I disappeared. From my parents and my sister, I mean. I guess I was born a witch to a muggle family, and something in me knew to leave. So I jumped, I was maybe eight or nine, and someone from the Order came and took me in. A few years ago I tried to go back, to see my sister. She’d married, but she didn’t recognize me, so I dropped it and went home.”

James looked at Lily and quirked his eyebrows. “Is that why you’re a handler now,” he joked.

Lily put her hand on his back. “No. Alastor said I jumped too well to be in combat, that I should use it to pass tracelessly to the others.”

“He told me I fought to well to do anything else.”

“Alice said she saw. A month ago?”

“Oh yeah. We were attacking a Death Eater camp, trying to interrupt their rituals. We were the front team, Frank and someone else were the rearguard.”

“And what happened?”

“I don’t… like killing. If I don’t have to. But that group had just raided a muggle town, gathered the townspeople in a church…”. He paused, looking at his hands. “They deserved it.”

Lily looked at him more carefully. Last night he had looked clean, crisp. Now, his facial hair started to grow in, and his clothes were dirty. In the light, she could see the wrinkles in his eyes. Not from sleeplessness, but a weariness from the war.

“I understand,” she whispered, and she rested her head on his shoulder - an act of comfort. Cute or not, Lily’d always had a heart for her informants, and she made the call to take the fight. She remembered his look, the one that asked “ _ fight or stay _ ?”, and remembered how ready she was for battle.

“We can’t leave here, but maybe I can show you the rest of the cave,” Lily offered.

“I’d like that,” James said.


	3. Give and Take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here: Big dogs, what is lost, and reaching to find.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am getting more and more excited writing this yall

A week later, and they’d explored the whole cave - even parts Lily’d never ventured in. She picked it as a hideout because it was secluded; even she’d had to venture in by foot the first time to cast an anchor. James was, surprisingly, a good conversationalist. He knew to ask questions that made her think, and shared just enough that she was willing to trust him.

The first time they walked through the cave, she’d cast a simple spell to let his bed float alongsider her. Sometimes she’d needed to expand the cave for it to fit. He’d been quiet at first, gathering strength, but eventually he asked why she chose this place to be her home. Her first answer was well measured: 

“I thought the crystals were beautiful the first time I warped in.”

It wasn’t a lie, but Lily felt like she could tell him more. Not that she owed it to him, but the opposite. That his curiosity was genuine. She could tell in the way his eyes searched her face, looking for more truth.

“Quid pro quo,” she said. “How’d you join the order?”

James raised his eyebrows, but smiled. “My parents passed just before the war started - they were old. But Minnie - erm, Mcgonagall, knew my mother well, and kind of took me in even though I was grown. She was already part of the Order and one day I stumbled into her office while she was doing some business.”

She reached out to touch his arm, a reassuring gesture, but he moved it at the same time, and she touched his hand instead. He held hers carefully, and it felt right. A few moments passed, Lily walking by the levitating bed between stalagmites, capturing sunlight and reflecting them upon the cave walls in blue and green and red and yellow.

James broke the silence, giving her hand a firm squeeze before letting it go. “Why’d you end up focusing on jumping?” 

Lily was quicker to answer, almost ready for him to ask. A remedy to the shallow answer she’d given at first. “I was a potioneer first. But maybe… so I never lose family again. Like the first time I jumped. To have control over it.”

James gave her a knowing look. “Or maybe to find family again,” he whispered, looking at a stream of water dripping from the cave wall, illuminated by a ray of sunlight. 

Lily followed his gaze, and they walked on.

* * *

Another week later, and James got a letter, sort of. A giant, black dog ripped through the cave wall, holding a shred of paper in its mouth. James looked absolutely delighted, but Lily spend a few moments gathering magic around her hands before remembering that Sirius’ familiar was a dog. And that both the stag and doe had come out of ethereality to play with the dog, once it had given James the paper.

James read it, and placed it carefully beside him. He was strong enough to walk, and cast the lightest of spells. “He has news for us, wants to visit.”

They’d talked about Sirius and Remus and how they’d become James’ family, and Lily trusted them more than she trusted Dumbledore. So despite the Fidelius, Lily conjured a piece of paper, and burned an anchor into it, and gave it back to the dog.

When it left, Lily asked, “Are you okay with him seeing you like this?”

James pondered a moment, flexing his fingers and stretching his arms. Lily couldn’t help but notice that some life had begun to come back to his muscles. The first night, his skin had become ashy and pale, but now it was a rich brown - like ripe earth, with red hues that stood out against the cooler blues of the cave.

He glowed in the cave, and it Lily cursed under her breath. Dammit - Alice was right. He was thoughtful too - figured out how to cook and had meals waiting for her when she got back from meeting informants, and asked her about how they went. 

It was his post-mission ritual, he’d explained. Just extended to her since he couldn’t go out on any. 

She made to walk to him - he was staring at his hands, sitting on the bed - but as she neared, a portal opened where the dog had left, out of the very air itself. There was a breeze and a swirl and out came Sirius, dressed in a large, shaggy cloak reminiscent of his familiar. 

He quickly walked towards James and asked, “how are ya mate?”, then turned to Lily, grinning, and said “Hey Lils, hope he’s been a good boy.”

She could tell there was pain behind his smile, and James could too, because instead of a retort, he offered a hug. Lily watched as silent conversations passed between them, and when they broke, James’ face was grim. 

“What happened?” James asked.

Sirius took a moment to collect himself before speaking. He didn’t cry often, so even now Lily barely noticed the mist in his eyes.

“Regulus is dead, James. He killed him. I got there just in time for Regulus’ last words.”

James moved to hold Sirius, and they hugged for a while. James had told him about how his parents took Sirius in, and how they were basically brothers, and she knew of Regulus from Sirius’ stories of his childhood. 

Lily reached out with her hand, touched the fabric of the void, and then willed her hand through space and pulled on a thread of time. 

It wasn’t… real time travel, or even a jump. But she thought about her sister, and never meeting her again, and let the her doe familiar spring from her hands and into the void. It came back with a whisper in its mouth.

“Traitor.” Lily whispered it first, and then said it, looking at James and Sirius. “He was a traitor. That’s why he killed Regulus.”

Sirius got up and gave Lily a hug. Then, he pulled away with a grin to his face. “So he stuck it to our mother one last time, eh?”

“What’d you do just now, Lily?” James asked.

“I borrowed from you two. That moment, and asked for something of the nothingness. I… haven’t done that since my sister, to find her.” 

“Thank you,” James said, and came to hug her as well, and Lily felt warm, as if she had given him something he didn’t have before.”

Sirius returned from pacing about the cave, and asked, “So how long’re you stuck here for Prongs? No offense Lils.”

James ran his hands through his hair. “Dumbledore said Voldemort robbed me. That I have to replace what he took. So until I find that, I guess.”

Sirius’ brows furrowed for a moment, before his eyes lit up: “Your magic?”

Lily and James looked at Sirius, dumbfounded. 

“When Dumbledore was here… he cast some spell to see into James’ body. His magic lines were blacked out.”

“I thought it’d heal naturally,” James added.

“I don’t think so,” Sirius said. “Not if they were stolen. They have to be given back.”

“How do you do that?” Lily asked.

“I don’t know,” Sirius replied. “But I do have one more piece of information for you. He’s… coming. Between killing Peter and Regulus, and all of the safehouses going down, he’s making a big move. Don’t let anyone else in after me.”

“You wouldn’t betray us,” James said. 

“No, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t spies in the Order,” he said. “Look I’ve got to go, but be safe okay? Find out how to get your magic back.”

“Thanks Padfoot.” 


	4. Mana Transfer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> how does one transfer mana? ;)

Lily twisted through space - between a small branch and a spiderweb - and met Mary by a small pond. A frog lay on a lilypad, floating lazily around. Mary was a traditional witch - she wore a black hat, and black robes, and stirred a cauldron of boiling, green liquid.

“Lily,” she greeted. “Bad news.”

It was the same everywhere. The Death Eaters on offensive, and the Order undermanned. 

“What’s happened,” Lily asked. She tried to read Mary’s face, but it was obscured by the hat’s shadow; she could only see a grimace.

“Frank and Alice went down - alive mind you. But out for a while. We’re running low on safe places for the injured. I don’t know what Dumbledore has planned but something has to change.”

“And you?”

“I got out okay. Will be fine once I brew this and get some sleep.”

“Good. Stay safe.”

Mary reached out her hand and opened a portal for Lily through the pond, and as Lily stepped through, she thought of the news she’s compiled over the last week. The only thing she could imagine was to chop the head off the snake, so to speak. But that seemed impossible.

* * *

Remus met her in a bookstore. In plain sight, wearing a knit, except that the books around them didn’t bear the titles of muggle books, and the people that passed by seemed to bend right around them.

“My library,” he explained. “I’ve been looking up a few things for James and Sirius.”

“‘A few things,’” Lily remarked, “usually gets those boys in trouble.”

“As I hear it, James getting in trouble is why I’m here,” he teased.

Lily offered a smile. Remus had more wit than most people gave him credit for, and his witchcraft was cleaner than most expect from a shapeshifter. 

“So what’d you find?” Lily asked.

“Found a book for you that might help, but I haven’t done much to get into it. I have another stack of things to find.”

He handed her an old book, bound in black leather. When she touched it, she felt a pulse of magic flow through her and out behind her.

“Watch out, it’s a mean one,” said Remus. “Straight from the 18th century witch trials. Not too dark though. Here I’ll see you out.”

Remus took a book from the wall behind him and opened it, gesturing for Lily to step through. She did, and imagined the crystals in her cave, and James standing there, and saw him pacing, and landed right on top of him, stumbling.

* * *

The landing caught her off guard, but James moreso. It seemed like he’d begun to feel stir-crazy. Weeks in one place, only interacting with Lily wasn’t enough of the world for him.

He caught her falling, grinned and said “Guess it’s my birthday today,” and helped right her. Despite the joke - (was the look in his eye a joke?) - she’d learned his mannerisms and saw a loneliness in his eyes. 

She felt like this wasn’t a time to ask directly, but to fill the space with stories. So, as she wound down, she talked about where the others took her - out to the swamps, and into the ocean floor, and into Remus’ bookstore. She finished by asking, “and where would you go, if you could leave now?”

James was caught off guard and took a moment to think.

“My castle. Siri and Remus and I spent time there. Actually it’s my parents’; been in the family for generations.”

Lily tried to picture James in a castle, and it sort of made sense. When put together, James always had this regal feel about him. In the same way that Alice felt at home in the clouds, or Mary in the swamp - like they belonged there.

“When’s the last time you were there?” Lily asked.

“Ages. I gave it to the Order as a safehou- oh shit.”

Lily caught on quickly and said “oh shit” at the same time. The two looked at each other as the realization of Voldemort’s next attack hit them.

“Where is the castle, James? I’ll make a summons.”

“It’s protected. Only Dumbledore can get in, or me. Potter magic. I can’t exactly do that right now.”

Suddenly, Lily remembered the book from Remus. “Remus gave me this book about channeling magic. Maybe it could help.” She called the book back into existence and handed it to James. As he took it in his hand, but before Lily let go, a surge of power flowed from Lily and into James, sending a shockwave through the cave.

“What was that?” he asked.

Lily didn’t respond. She felt magic tingling from her fingertips, up her arm, and into her heart. It wasn’t a kind of magic she’d ever felt before - her jumps felt cold, like diving into the oceans, and her cloak was heavy, like when she was young and wrapped herself in blankets when she was sad. But this felt like white lightning - jolting from her bones, looking for a conduit.

She took a step back, held her arm in front of her, and sent magic flowing from her magic lines, out of her fingers, and into a crystal, which shone brilliantly against the moonlight. 

When she did, James’ arm glowed. 

“Do you feel the tingling?” she asked.

He hesitated. “I better… let me read this book.”

* * *

Lily spent some time walking, replaying the surge of magic in her head. It was surprising and sudden, but not all that unfamiliar. As if the connection wasn’t new, only unused. By the time she got back, James was waiting, book in his lap, and an odd look on his face.

“Well you won’t like it,” he said.

“What won’t I like?”

“This book is about soul bonding. Sharing one mana pool.”

Lily wasn’t as surprised as she let on; between Alice and Remus’ quips, and the way the tome responded to their touching it, she had already realized the book had something to do with a bond. 

She had planned to ask a question, but to her own surprise, what came out of her lips were, “what makes you think I wouldn’t be interested?”

James’ eyes widened at the same time as he started stammering, trying to explain what exactly the soul bond required. Riding her bravery, she stepped forward and held his hands, before putting one to her waist and another on her face. James’ breath felt warm, but she waited for him to move.

It took a moment. 

They’d come close to this on their walks through the cave, hand in hand, and the time she’d fallen asleep on him after she’d gotten back from a mission. Logically, she was willing - she needed James to get inside the castle and lay a trap. But another feeling bubbled inside of her instead. A surge of magic from her bones and out of her skin, even though the book was clear across the cave, and it only grew stronger when James finally kissed her, pressing his body against hers.

She summoned the floating bed and let him lead her back to it; it twisted vertically until her back was on it, then swept them carefully off their feet so they lay, James arms above Lily’s shoulders.

She kissed behind his ear, pausing to whisper, “so what does a soul bond take?”

James flushed, and said, “do you trust me?”

She bit back a host of replies:  _ you’re already in my home, and you’ve already told me story, and you’ve jumped with me across the void, and you are here until you get your magic back _ . Instead, she put her hands on his waist and bent up to kiss him.

* * *

The spell was easy to cast - it had started the second their hands touched the book. James let the magic flow through him. It felt different than his. It surrounded him, and drew close to him.  _ So this is what Lily feels all the time,  _ he thought.

He heard a strange voice speak,  _ only when I feel comfortable. _

It was Lily’s voice - he heard it in his mind and his heart, even though their lips, their hips still touched.

_ I can hear you _ .

_ Share your magic with me, James. _

He did. He let Lily’s enveloping magic come into his heart, his bones, where his lines and runes lay, and enter into them. He willed it into a new shape and let it flow out.

Lily felt the lightning come back into her skin, her bones. Like before - only this time instead of tingles, she felt the static, the electricity gathering. She sent it out, used it to reach into the void, and she felt James, too, with a touch of her magic, cover them in a shroud as they departed.

The spell felt something like - two bound particles, accelerating across the universe, bending around matter and space and meeting, finally, in an endless light. It felt like their heart and their bones were one, and their body was one, and they could glide under and over the fabric of reality together.

It felt like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cant believe i wrote a strangers to soul mates fic wf
> 
> next: counterspell


	5. Counterspell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MYSTICAL SPOOKY SPACE BENDING SHIT
> 
> because they're SOUL MATES
> 
> and LOVE IS THE MOST POWERFUL MAGIC

Lily woke to a voice in her head, asking,  _ was that real? _

James sounded different than when he spoke. His real voice was deep, and warm, but this was quiet, just a whisper. 

“Yes,” she whispered. 

It was an odd adjustment. His body was here, next to hers, and she could move her hands to hold his, her lips to meet his. But she also knew that his body was just over there - past the point at which her magic flowed and her spells gathered about her, like she could touch him with a pulse.

She did so, and he responded, warmly embracing her hands.

His mind, too, was open - when he let her. She could see his thoughts forming as he had them, and just beyond the bend, she could see his memories. She felt him peering in her mind, and imagined a hallway, opening a door named,  _ things that make me feel warm _ . She felt him look inside, and then draw away, and then she felt his hands trace her collarbones.

_ Like this? _ He asked.

She shifted, put her hands over his and showed her how to draw her name in the old tongue, pressing his fingers lightly. “Like this.”

* * *

The alarm came in the night, just past witching hour. They reached out together, shifting space and touching a line that took them right to the castle, to a circular room at its heart.

Six figures stood in hoods, and they both held back a gasp.

_ Severus.  _ Lily recognized him immediately.

_The spy_. She felt James’ disdain flow out of him, gathering about his palms as black-purple spheres. _In my castle_. 

The smell of Yew and redberries filled the air, making it difficult to breathe. They watched, behind a veil they’d cast to guard the anchors that made up the Order’s trap, as Voldemort spoke. 

“The wand is mine, and the cloak is here. He will come soon. Did you tell him?”

“Yes Master.” Snape’s hair, greasy and straight, reflected the candlelight.

Voldemort stepped to a tapestry on the wall. He spoke in the old tongue this time, lacing his words with power and prophecy.

“I need a sacrifice.” 

To her right, James tensed.  _ My parents never told me what was behind that. Dumbledore said it was to be protected, and I let myself forget about it.  _

“How does it feel, Severus, not to know?”

“Know what?”

“She is here.”

It was Lily’s turn to tense - the words were pointed at her, and she felt her heartbeat slow for a moment.  _ He knows! _

“Who, Master?”

Voldemort lifted his hands, speaking a word. The veil around James and Lily fell, and Snape’s eyes widened as he saw Lily, and then narrowed when he spotted James holding her hand. Ten flashes of light manifested around the room - the Order. 

In the next moment: “Severus, you traitor!” 

“Not me, Master!”

“Die as your beloved falls” he whispered, but before he could cast again, a red flame appeared before him. The room filled with a shockwave as the flame became an egg, which burst as Dumbledore appeared in the center.

“Tom,” he said. A dense pressure filled the room. 

Neither the Death Eaters nor the Order moved - almost as if they were paralyzed. The sweet smell of lemon wafted through the air, cutting through the woody yew, and it was mesmerizing 

“The stone,” Voldemort said.

“You will not find the cloak,” said Dumbledore.

“I will be master of the Hallows.”

Still unmoving, James showed Lily a memory in his mind. A cloak, fully transparent, and a young James playing within it, hiding his arms and legs. His father taking it from him, folding it, and placing it behind a wall.  _ That’s why he’s here _ .

And then at once:

James and Lily let their magic come together - his gathering spark, and her depthful reach, and left the plane of the castle and grasped where, in the memory, James’ body was hidden. They felt a soft, silver fabric, grasped it in their hands, and lay behind it.

The room was filled with a breath. Dumbledore made to  _ stop _ , and the air itself began to slow and freeze, filling the lungs of the Order and the Death Eaters alike.

But Voldemort spoke a word, and the word was death. It was in the old tongue - it’s power resonated around the walls, and through all the life in the room. It overtook the breath, taking it’s crawl and turning it into a slow decay, and everyone in the room crumpled and fell.

In Dumbledore’s hand was a stone, and it glowed, and, as if time rewound, Dumbledore stood again and raised his hands, casting a spell.

Voldemort reached out a hand, drawing Severus’ body to him, and then closed his grip. Suspended in the air, black lines from Voldemort’s hands began to envelop Snape, piercing his skin, drawing dark energy from it. Voldemort twisted his hand, and Snape’s body dematerialized into a black wand, from which Voldemort sent forth another wave of  _ death.  _

The stone glowed once more as the Wand and Stone dueled.

From behind the cloak, still outside of time, Lily and James moved. Heart and mind together, they drew the other Order members behind the cloak, letting them trail behind them in the veil and saving them from the word of power. 

The stone was powerful, but the wand moreso; on the third  _ death  _ it did not glow anymore, and Dumbledore fell, his soul slipping seamlessly out of his body and into the beyond.

The conversation between James and Lily was quick. _We have to kill him._ _Reach again, like you did for Sirius_. 

Lily thought of Voldemort’s mercilessness, and Dumbledore’s crypticness. She drew back the threads of time, seeing the end of those paths leading to loneliness and death. Then she thought of James, and the way her soul and his met where the magic runes cut into her bones and the magic lines glowed on her heart walls. She asked him to come with her through the cloak once more, as if it were a portal, and felt his nodding agreement as a touch of lightning tickling her neck.

Lily he spoke a word, and the word was  _ love _ , and it took the form of James’ magic engulfing Lily’s - a spark of lightning reaching through the void, the cloak opening a portal between them-beyond-time and Voldemort, whose soul was but a shred. Together they touched his soul, separating it from where it anchored on his body,  _ jumping it _ out of existence.

And then, the castle returned - or they returned to the castle - fully embodied. Voldemort and Dumbledore’s bodies lay on the ground, as did the Death Eaters’, and the rest of the Order stood where they came in. A white stone and a black wand lay on the floors next to their masters.

“Was that all they never had?” asked Lily. “To love?”

“It’s all I ever want to have,” said James.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU FOR READING
> 
> this is super crazy experimental and i had a lot of fun writing it, but I'd like to move onto a different project. I hope this ending sufficed and was not disappointing. Please tell me what you liked! And what I should write next. Follow me on tumblr! julxr4


End file.
